Ahh, finally I can post about what on earth was keeping me busy in December.  Note to self: do it all in November next year.

The handmade goodies.  So far so good, they are all being enjoyed.  Only two foibles to speak of, one being that the pj’s for the kids were way too long (fine for the kids close to me so I can hem them up, not so fine for those out West, but they are wearing them anyway) and the other being that my Mom and I both thought one of my nephews had a green jacket, so I made a green hat and his jacket is blue!   Not sure how we both thought that, but the green hat looks good on him (still don’t have a photo to share) so he will keep it.

To start with, I decided to do up family PJ’s.  Pink Camo flannel for the girls and Grey Camo flannel for the boys.  I found a pattern that did the whole family, however, in hindsight, I should have measured the kids against J.  I was trying to hide it from him as I did a set for us as well.  Which we all wore on Christmas Eve together.   With the pants I also did a Team T-shirt (which I didn’t show) that has ‘Team XXX”.  XXX being the last name of the family.   I did up some iron on transfers and bought a whack of t-shirts at Wally World.

For the adults, I included my Desk Calendars, I had some trouble getting the guys calendars cut properly, so my Brother-in-Law out West got the square version.   I also attempted my first soap, which turned out neat but I know what I would do differently next time.  So my Sister’s all got a bar of soap in their gift boxes as well.

As well as the Pj’s my nieces and nephews each got a small (read $5) toy and a handmade hat.

Each hat patter was picked with the niece or nephew in mind.  And I chose each colour depending on their snowsuits.  My baby nephew got the cute navy and green one, with three little pompons at the top.  My littlest niece got the pink and white paper bag style.  Which when I put it on Apple’s head I almost kept it for her.  I can do one for he myself now if I want though.  The orange one is for my older nephew, it is the same style as the one I did for some cousins and J.  J insisted that they have the same one.   And last of all (from this batch) is the cherry hat.  This is for my eldest niece and I just thought that the dangling cherries is something that she would like.  That and the fact that her coat is red.

I forgot to take photos of the last two hats I made and have yet to get one of my nephew’s hat (the green one that should have been blue).  But here is a photo of my shy little niece wearing her hat.  She loved it and wouldn’t take it off all Christmas day.  She really hates it when I try to take pictures of her so I have to work at it.  I only have a couple of her face and it usually takes me all day to get to that point.  Funny because all the rest of them love it when I take their pictures.  Hers was a white with flecks of raspberry to match her raspberry coat.

Now what to do for next year?!

This year the Christmas cookies didn’t all get finished. Both in their decorating (I missed icing on one) and from the tins. Once again, I made cookies for Hubby’s staff at work. And well, this may be the last year for that.

Hubby has 46 employees, at his previous job he had 11. Every Christmas for ten years Hubby would buy boxes of Chocolate for the staff, write them all a card and everyone appreciated it. At least, if they didn’t they never said a word. Which of course it what you would expect when your boss does a little something for you.

The first year at his current job, we pulled together boxes of cookies mostly in one night, when we realized the boxes were huge and would hold way more cookies than we had on hand. While Hubby ran to the store for chocolates and stuff, I baked and baked and baked. By midnight they were ready and the staff was shocked. You see, they had never received anything for Christmas before, so it was a surprise. Last year, we were better prepared and the boxes came together rather quickly with little fuss. I even got a call from one of the staff who wanted to say thanks.

This year. We had to get new boxes, and they were a little smaller. They got the same amount of cookies, just not as much filler. Hubby has had a bit of trouble with some staff lately, nothing big, just small stuff, but stuff that made him wonder if he should give out the boxes. But, since I had a freezer full of cookies and had then baked them all off, I kinda wanted to sway him just a little, if for nothing else my waistline didn’t need a thousand cookies hanging around. He decided to go with it. So we packed them up and away they went. He received a couple of thank you’s and a few, ‘Wow, we didn’t think you would do this this year, with all the stuff going on’ but he also received a few not so nice comments. Stuff that only kids in high school would say. Stuff that any grown person would be embarased by if they actually stopped and listened to themselves. So after all that, we aren’t so sure if we will do it next year. And truthfully, it would be no sweat off my back to not have to make an extra thousand cookies at the busiest time of year. We will just have to wait and see, if the girls and boys play nice in the sandbox this year. If not, that will be the end of the cookie box tradition.

*note: none of the brown sugar fudge made it to the boxes (yes, totally my fault) and there were other cookies, I just can’t find the photos of the rest…